Three women displaced in Live Oak garage fire

Live oak >> Three Live Oak women and a dog were displaced from their house on the 300 block of Seventh Avenue after a Tuesday night fire destroyed part of a garage and damaged the rest of the home with smoke.

Shortly before 10 p.m., one of the residents at the home walked into the garage and found it full of smoke and saw that it was on fire, said Mike DeMars, fire inspector for Central Fire. A housemate walked in after smelling smoke and found the first woman standing frozen in the smoke-filled room, DeMars said.

"(The first woman) was a bit overwhelmed," DeMars said.

After calling 911, the two women told a third housemate to leave the house.

Central Fire and Santa Cruz Fire arrived on scene to extinguish the fire, which was in one corner of the garage and spreading to the ceiling, DeMars said. Firefighters extinguished the flames within 10 minutes.

The garage, which was attached to the two-story home, had been converted to a living space where one of the women lived, DeMars said. Investigators labeled the fire as accidental and traced the cause to combustible materials, including a bookcase, that were placed too close to a water heater in the garage, DeMars said.

The woman who first discovered the fire may have suffered smoke inhalation but declined treatment, DeMars said. There were no other reported injuries.

The home was declared uninhabitable, with fire damage to the garage and smoke damage to the rest of the two-story home. The women and dog were relocated with the help of the Santa Cruz County Red Cross.

DeMars noted that the home did not appear to have any smoke detectors, which could have notified the residents of the fire.

"They would have heard the smoke alarm going off and probably would have been able to report it a little sooner," he said.